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Quiz Show controller

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Lots of space in there! The arduino is bolted to the metal base plate. The shield is only there to provide a strong attachment point for the wires. Unfortunately, I only had solid core bell wire, so the cabling is quite stiff and hard to work with. Next time I'll use ribbon cable!

Burried under the wires are two SIP resistor packs. The LED pack is 2K ohms. I would have liked 500 ohms. They would be much brighter then. But I didnt have any in my inventory, and did not want to solder individual resistors. Common pin on the SIP goes to ground. Digital outputs on the Arduino send current through the LED, then through the SIP resistor pack.

The Buttons are mounted in seperate boxes. They are typical arcade style. I was fortunate to find a local shop with 6 colors. Each button has a long cable (at least 5 meters) so that I can use this kit in a school classroom. The player groups could be pretty far from the main box.

Buttons are tied high with another SIP resistor pack. In this case, the common pin on the SIP is connected to 5 volts. The resistor output is then tied to the analog inputs (I am using them as digital inputs). Also tied to the input is one leg of the switch (via the RCA connector on the box). The other end of the switch is connected to ground. When the switch is open, current flows into the input, registering a HIGH value in software. When the switch is closed, current takes the path of least resistance, going stright to ground, rather than entering the Arduino input pin. The software reads this as a LOW condition.

I have space in the box for future upgrades. I plan on installing a "correct" and "incorrect" button on the head unit, as well as a reset (so I can bypass the 5 second timer).

In addition to winner determination, the software also provides a serial message output. I hope to eventually connect it to a PC and write some gameshow software.